BANGKOK, Thailand – The United States and six other Western nations say hundreds of thousands of dollars in donations meant to help identify victims of the 2004 tsunami may have been misused, a U.S. official said Monday.

In a letter to Thai police, the countries called for an audit and also asked authorities to speed up the analysis of DNA samples from bones, teeth and hair that the donors said could lead to the identification of 400 bodies from the Dec. 26, 2004 tsunami.

The Nation newspaper, quoting an unnamed diplomat, said there are concerns that as much as 60 percent of the $1.6 million meant for the Thai Tsunami Victim Identification Center may have gone for travel and other miscellaneous costs.

“There may have been some misuse of funds given by our respective governments given to support the disaster victims identification process,” said the letter, signed by ambassadors from the United States, Britain, Finland, Germany, France, Sweden and the Netherlands and dated Nov. 22.

“To ensure that these suspicions are cleared up definitively, we request that the financial records of the (center) be professionally audited,” the letter said.

A U.S. Embassy official, who requested anonymity in accordance with policy, confirmed the letter had been sent to police.

Police Gen. Ajirawit Suphanaphesat, the chairman of the victim identification center, acknowledged concerns about the misuse of money, but he blamed foreign committees that jointly managed the funds until May of this year, when the remaining $800,000 was turned over to police management.

“We have managed to spend the money transparently and carefully,” Ajirawit said, adding that police have asked for an audit of the money spent before May 2006.

The tsunami, triggered by a powerful earthquake off Indonesia, killed more than 5,400 people along Thailand’s Andaman Sea coast. Another 349 Thais and dozens of foreigners were reported missing and have not been accounted for.

The identification center, staffed by international forensic experts and overseen by the Thai police, has spent the past two years identifying bodies of people who died in the tsunami. While hundreds of bodies were identified, critics complained that some bodies were misidentified and authorities have been slow to identify the remaining ones.

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